It is natural to start reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra at the beginning, in which we are offered a brief review of Zarathustra's background and then a full report of Zarathustra's invocation to the sun as he prepares to descend from his mountain (P:1). As Nietzsche himself reminds us, however, the beginning of Thus Spoke Zarathustra did not appear for the first time in that work. Instead, he writes, we can see the diamond beauty of the first words of Zarathustra flashing at the conclusion of his previous book, The Gay Science – in its last aphorism entitled “Incipit tragoedia” (EH GS, Z:1). In addition, Nietzsche tells us, the fundamental thought of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the thought of eternal recurrence, did not appear for the first time in that work. Instead, it appeared in the penultimate section of The Gay Science – in the aphorism entitled “The Greatest Heavy Weight” (EH Z:1). Together, then, the aphorisms in sections 341 and 342 of The Gay Science contain Nietzsche's introduction of the first words and fundamental thought of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. These aphorisms are in turn preceded by Nietzsche's aphorism on “The dying Socrates” in section 340. As several commentators have noted, there is ample evidence that Nietzsche intended his readers to notice the various structural and thematic links among these three sections.

In this chapter, then, I begin my exegesis of Thus Spoke Zarathustra with a close reading of Nietzsche's concluding trilogy of aphorisms in The Gay Science.